


Hold the blindfold down

by ClaraCivry (Kat_Of_Dresden)



Category: Bohemian Rhapsody (Movie 2018), Queen (Band)
Genre: 1974, Angst, Basically, Hurt/Comfort, Major Illness, Realisations, Sick Brian, Sickfic, as in Roger realises how much he cares about Brian, but if you wanna read as them being friends is okay too, could be read as Maylor, ill Brian, kinda quite Maylor, oblivious roger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 19:56:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18611437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kat_Of_Dresden/pseuds/ClaraCivry
Summary: Summer of 1974Brian is in hospital again, and Roger is just annoyed about it (or that's what he tells himself).Then he goes to visit him to the hospital and everything changes. He hadn't realised how much Brian really meant to him.





	Hold the blindfold down

**Author's Note:**

> Title and first line form the Editors song "Smokers outside hospital doors"

_Hold the blindfold down, so your eyes can see...._

 

Brian had collapsed again.

 

Again.

 

And he'd been taken to the hospital.

 

Roger had been trying to take it easy. Sure, his friend had to undergo surgery (again) and it was a fairly serious condition (again) that could be fatal if not fixed with surgery, but the doctors knew what they were doing. So no reason to worry. Brian was going to be fine, right? He wasn't going to die from this, he was going to be okay and it was just a bother, because now they were probably going to have to postpone or cancel the tour they had planned. Again. Which was inconvenient, really mostly annoying.

 

Brian would have whatever tests he needed and then he would recover from the surgery, and he would be fine, but need a lot of time to recover. Which was bullshit. Of course, Roger felt that Brian took a long time recovering, that he was so terribly slow – but his perception wasn't correct, because this last time he hadn't been recovering, not really. He'd been getting sick too, and they hadn't known. They let him get sicker and sicker until he collapsed. Again. And they hadn't seen anything.

 

Roger shrugged it off, again. Brian would be fine, the doctors were very good, they always knew how to fix things. (Although they hadn't fixed Brian all that well last time, right? Something broke inside of him again, and it almost... don't think about it, Roger, what's the point?) Roger was just thinking about all those missed concerts, about all the cancelled dates. They were just starting to get big! This was such a disappointment. Of course he knew that this was not something Brian was doing on purpose, but...

 

The thing was, he'd managed to live with it. Put it on the furthest corner of his mind, not let it bother him. He would continue working on songs, he would continue to find new people to fill his nights with entertainment and offhandedly ask how Brian was when the subject was brought up. He cared about Brian, of course he did, and he wanted him to be all right, but he knew that this would take long and felt that he didn't need to know all the details, that it wouldn't help anyone. What would Brian or the band gain if he worried? Exactly, nothing. So he didn't worry. The doctors would know what to do, and his friends kept him updated.

 

Last thing he knew was that he was out of suregery and stable, and if things continued to be all right he would released soon. Good. The sooner he got out, the sooner he would rest the hell out of this sickness and would be able to get back in the road again (Roger was a man of limited patience and needed to be doing things always, and not having guitars sloooowed everything down). So he wanted to know how he was, but in the meantime he didn't concern himself too much with his friend's state.

 

Until that one day.

 

“Roger, darling, could stay with Brian tonight? His parents are resting at home for once, and I thought I could stay but Mary needs me urgently, and I don't want him to be alone, he's still quite ill...”

 

Roger wanted to find a reason to get out of it, but the truth was he hadn't been around since Brian was operated on and he felt a bit bad. Maybe a night with him would banish all his guilt once and for all.

 

“Sure, I'll go.”

 

The hospital was too bare. The hospital was too white and awful. Brian, who'd always been the biggest of all of them, seemed small. Roger fidgeted, didn't like this. He liked the figure on the bed even less.

 

Brian was sleeping in an uncomfortable medication induced sleep, and it was quite a horrible sight. Roger didn't think it would be this bad, he didn't think Brian would look so... Small. Broken. Frail. He hadn't seen him get sicker and whither. In the eye of his mind, he was fine, but just lazing off in bed, in a hospital that looked much better than this.

 

This was not like Brian at all. Brian was big and tall and imposing, and very vain and full of himself. Brian was always listening and mentioning new concepts and giving his ideas. He was always seen. Very present both because physically he was so tall and emotionally he was... so present too. He had an opinion about everything, and it was not easy for him to stay out of any songs, any changes: the music, the tours... Roger hadn't thought about it till now, but Brian was a great part of their sound, of what made them Queen.

 

So watching him now, diminished, even thinner than usual, eyes closed and pale as death... It was quite a shock, and Roger didn't know what to make of it. Suddenly, his whole “I don't care as long as he's able to play soon” strategy went down the drain. Because that was what it had been, right? An strategy, an strategy to not think about the fact that Brian was only getting worse when he should be getting better, and that his condition was much more serious than any update from his friends could ever had made him think. An strategy not to see. The realisation was harsh.

 

Roger wasn't used to dealing with feelings like these, with almost losing a friend. Sure, Brian and him didn't always get along, but this didn't mean that Roger didn't want him by his side. Forever. They'd been together in two bands now, they watched the moon landing together, they were... for all their differences and all their figthing, they were really close. Roger couldn't and didn't want to admit it, but the thought of Brian dying young scared him like no other, because in his mind, Brian was going to live forever.

 

But seeing him in that hospital bed making those small sounds as he breathed, looking so terribly, undeniably ill, made it a real possibility. The white walls, the small bed, all those people around him moaning, that terrible white curtains separating each room. It was unpersonal, so ugly and cold. And Brian had been here all this time, a lot of time alone, surrounded by silence and whiteness. Seriously ill. Gravely ill after months trying to recover from a near brush with death.

 

Suddenly, Roger was reminded of the day when they had to take him to the plane because he couldn't stand on his own two feet. When he'd been yellow. They hadn't seen anything back then either, not until he collapsed. And now they same had happened, and they had again been blind. And Brian was left here, in this house of death, for days and days because he couldn't recover properly.

 

Roger didn't know what he was feeling, but he was feeling a lot of it. He fell on the chair next to the bed, and looked at his friend with sorrow. It was Brian all right, that was his face, those were his curls - but he'd seemed to have lost some of his light, some of his life. He hadn't been the same as he was last year, no sir. He was weaker, smaller, thinner. He was ill, just like the others in the hospital, and it wasn't something to shrug off.

 

Seeing him like that... It hit Roger like a ton of bricks. This wasn't just simply his friend being a nuisance and making them lose concert time. This was Brian getting only progressively sicker and sicker, and not getting better. This was Brian on the very edge of being in a critical state, and he was not going to get well. There was a chance that he would not get over this, and Roger hadn't realised this, hadn't known (hadn't wanted to know). He'd smiled while out with his friends, he'd recorded his drums, he spent the night with several lovely fans. While Brian was like that, pale and absolutely worn out by illness, first one and then the other, that had been making him increasingly weaker.

 

Roger didn't understand now, how he'd been so blind. He had been there, when they had to get Brian in the plane when he was half dead in may. He'd been there while they were recording but the guitarist was still too exhausted and drained to do all that recording an album. He saw everything, but at the same time, he saw nothing. (And now he couldn't do anything but see, look at him, look at how white he is, look at how ill. For months)

 

Roger only saw concerts cancelled, delays, missed opportunities. They couldn't continue without Brian (what's a rock band without guitars?) and they couldn't use anyone else because on the one hand Brian was their friend, and on the other his guitar sound was too unique and different to ever consider being replaced. And just as the band was getting bigger! Really! Tours in America!

 

But Brian was so much more than a band member. Brian was a friend. Brian was also a person that was ill. He was very ill. Each illness made him smaller, weaker, less likely to recover. Roger could see that his hair didn¡t shine anmore, that his cheeks were sunken in, that his hands were thinner, skinnier. All of him had become scrawny, even more than it used to. Roger could only see hospital, and it looked like it was hurting Brian instead of helping, and it would continue to hurt him until...

 

Because that was what was happening.... He was declining, little by little, and each time it was more difficult for him to pull through. Roger could see it now, after having ignored it, after forcing himself not to see. After ignoring what had been in front of him so clearly. The hospital was now screaming at him, Brian's pained breaths hurting his eyes.

 

_Can't you see, Roger? Your friend is almost dying and you couldn't even come to visit. Blind friend, blind person.There's no worst blind that the one doesn't want to see, right?_

 

Roger didn't want to look, but was looking. Couldn't tear his eyes off – eyes that were starting to get wet. It hurt too much to see, but he knew he had to face it.

 

_Look at him, look at him! Look at how ill he is, look at how much this illnesses had taken from him. Now think of him never recovering. Think of him getting sick again, and then again, and losing the energy to fight.Not being able to get better ever again._

 

Roger looked at the man in the bed and saw a life without him. No.

 

Suddenly there was a weight in his head, in his throat. Suddenly he could not breathe properly, the weight was heavier, and his eyes were full of tears. Brian became suddenly blurry as he looking at him and sobbed.

 

Roger had never been much of a crier. He tried to push away bad thoughts, think of ways out when in a bad situation, always manage to come out on top. If someone was sad, he tried and cheer them up, if he was in a jam he found solutions without having to shed any tears. Tears didn't help solve anything, did they? If you were going through some shit, you could always write a song, it's was going catharsis. And then you sang it and suddenly the problem was smaller. Yeah, music could solve a lot of bad stuff.

 

But this was different, because no matter what he did, no matter what he tried, it wouldn't change a thing. He had no power over Brian's health, he had no way of fixing his friend's steady decline, and no song would fix that. He could only watch, he could only... see. Even if his eyes were blurred by stupid, useless tears. He tried to say something. He'd been absent this whole time, and now he felt the overwhelming need to let his friend now that he was there. Although he didn't really knnow what to say.

 

“Hey, Bri. It's me. You have to get better, all right? We need you to be better. The band is not the same without you.”

 

_And it's not just that._

 

“We miss you. I miss you. I hadn't noticed how much I actually like having you around.”

 

 _I couldn't see._ _I didn't see. I didn't allow myself to see._

 

“...And this. This is scary, Bri. I don't like that you're her, it's a bad place, it can be helping you. You should be getting better, not worse. It feels like you're never going to get better and I...Stop scaring us, ok? It's been enough.”

 

_How's your demands going to help him? How will it help him get better?It won't, the same these bare white walls that match his fucking hands will help._

 

“Sorry, I... I hadn't realised it was this bad. That you were this ill, that you were hurting so much. I thought that everything would be all right soon enough, I thought that you were just playing sick. I just...”

 

Brian's figure on the bed didn't seem to be listening, lost in his state of sleep or unconsciousness and it only scared Roger even more. He wanted Brian to sit up and smile and tell him he was all right. He saw Brian's kind big smile in his head, he saw him concentrated on his guitar, he saw him excitedly talking about a new song. And then he saw figure on the bed, only a shadow of everything that Brian was. Hurt. And he hadn't been with him.

 

Fuck.

 

“You can't do this, Bri! You have to... you need to recover. For good. We are going to go places, remember? We are going to take the world by storm. I don't want to do this without you. I don't want to rock while you're in a hospital bed, hurting, suffering, or worse...”

 

_Look at him! He's nearly dead and you ignored him. You weren't there for him. LOOK. AT.HIM._

 

Roger took one of Brian's cold long hands, and more tears fell from his eyes, because no matter how much he wanted to do something to make Brian better, he simply couldn't. All his rockstar lifestyle, all the girls and all the concerts, the music even suddenly paled, suddenly were not important. Roger couldn't see himself without this long lanky man, didn't want to. What would the band be without Brian? What would his life be...? Roger hadn't seen just how important this man was for him, hadn't seen how much he would miss him if he was gone. They had lived through so much together, they knew each other so intimately, they had been for each other a lot. It was stupid, how much he'd taken Brian for granted. How he'd never doubted that he would be next to him.

 

Brian was young and important, he wasn't supposed to be going anywhere. But now....

 

“Please get better, Bri. I can't bear to see you like this. Please don't leave me, please don't make me watch you like this, in this godawful place... you deserve better.”

 

_You're going to lose him. And you never told him the most important thing._

 

“I love you, I love you, I love you.”

 

_What good is your love now? It won't help him. The room will still eat him, he will continue to..._

 

“I love you too.”

 

A hoarse small voice replied under him.

 

There they were, finally open, Brian's beautiful eyes. Suddenly the room didn't hurt so much, wasn't as cold and damaging. Brian was looking at Roger as if this was the first time he saw him.

 

“Let me see you.”

 

Brian's hand, the one that wasn't on Roger's, used what little strength he had to wipe out his friend's tears.

 

“I'll be fine, Rog. You'll see.”

 

And see he would.

 

Roger would see to it that Brian was all right, whole and well.

 

Everyone would see, and him the first.

 

And it was going to be a wonderful sight.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed! Would love to hear from you!


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